Technical Field
This application is related to triggering the capturing of an image by a camera based on measurements of ambient light made by an ambient light sensor.
Description of the Related Art
FIG. 1 shows an example of image capturing using a device 102 equipped with a camera. The device 102 is shown in FIG. 1 to be a smartphone but may in various embodiments be a tablet, laptop or smart television, among others. The device 102, whose front is illustrated in FIG. 1, has a camera with a rear-facing lens disposed on the back of the device. The camera is said to be rear-facing in relation to a front-facing screen 104 of the device 102. The screen 104 may be a touchscreen and may receive user touch input in addition to displaying images, text and video.
The camera may be used for capturing images, namely taking a picture. The camera lens may be pointed at an object 105 and an image of the object in the field of view of the lens will be shown on the screen 104. The image may be captured in response to actuation of an image capture button 106. For example, the user will press the image capture button 106 to take a picture.
As an alternative to providing the image capture button 106 on the body at the device 102, the image may be captured by a user providing an input to the screen 104. For example, the user needs to touch any part of the screen 104 or a particular region of the screen 104 for the image to be captured.
As may be recognized, the quality of the captured image deteriorates and becomes blurry if the camera, or the device 102 in general, is moved or shaken while the image is being captured. Touching the device in order to trigger image capturing is undesirable because it often results in shaking the device at the moment when it is most desirable for the device's camera to be held steadily in order to take a sharp picture without blur. For a sharp and focused image to be taken, the device 102 must be as stable and held steady while the picture is taken. The application of pressure due to pressing the image capture button 106 or touching an area of the screen 104, for example, by a user's finger, typically results in some slight movement, such as shaking or jolting of the device 102, as shown by lines 103. As a result a blurry image is captured, as shown by blurry image 107. To mitigate the blur, some devices implement compensation algorithms that reduce the blur. However, these algorithms are computationally intensive and utilize a large amount of computing resources to perform, thus reducing available battery power in battery-powered devices. In addition, these algorithms cannot recover image data that is not captured and forever lost due to device 102 moving just at the moment the picture is taken.